Completed between 2006 and 2007, Elliot Lake's BR+E exercise was a joint venture between the City's Economic Development Department, ELNOS, the East Algoma Community Futures Development Corporation, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the Elliot Lake and District Chamber of Commerce.

Elliot Lake's community and economic development partners began to focus on supporting the expansion and retention of existing businesses. To help that process, the BR+E survey program was used to guage the current business climate in Elliot Lake, so that barriers to growth could be identified and eliminated or opportunities for growth acted upon. Confidential and impartial interviews were conducted with a variety of business owners from all employment sectors. A statistically significant proportion of businesses were surveyed (approx. 27% of all businesses).

As a result, business owners had a direct and anonymous feed into the short and long term plans and priorities for City Hall, ELNOS, the Chamber of Commerce and the East Algoma CFDC.

The BR+E study revealed an overall healthy and growing business environment but also identified a number of areas that could be improved. The BR+E partners tackled the first 5 priority areas listed below.

1) Retail Leakage Study

The business community identified a need to better understand and quantify retail leakage and the overall retail environment in the community. BR+E Partners listened and organized a retail leakage study using the same methodology from an earlier study in 1998. 300 residents were randomly surveyed to determine the extent and scale of retail leakage from the community and the main retail gaps that consumers identified as reasons for shopping out of the City.

Both reports are available in the downloads section below and staff at the Economic Development Department are happy to answer more detailed questions about Elliot Lake's retail environment.

2) Community Beautification

While Elliot Lake is known for its beautiful natural setting, parts of the commercial and industrial areas were identified as needing improvement and not living up to their surroundings. Building facades, signage, bylaw enforcement, maintenance schedules and traffic flow were all identified as requiring improvements which could have an impact on the bottom line of businesses in the downtown and other commercial centres.